It uses white whole wheat flour (nutritionally the same as brown flour) for ease of handling and a lovely bread texture. Get started with whole grain baking with this recipe!

The Long cold rise method and no knead stretch and fold sourdough bread recipes are all similar techniques they use. Once you master one of these recipes. The others will be a snap!

Milk and Honey Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Milk and Honey Sourdough Sandwich bread recipe is Sasha Hunter’s creation. She has worked in bread many years (Sourdough for the last two years)and is an AMAZING bread baker.

But that is just her hobby. She also creates outstanding cakes and cupcakes professionally for special events. Follow Sasha on Instagram and Facebook to see her work.

Sasha posted this amazing recipe on the Perfect Sourdough FaceBook group. I hang out in these sorts of places and stalk the baker threads and learn a LOT from all sorts of experienced sourdough bakers.

Both professional and home bakers post lovely loaves and share inspiration and tips in this FB group. I highly recommend this group if you need inspiration, have questions, or just want to share your bakes. Fun!!

Anyway, I contacted Sasha and she generously agreed to contribute her recipe to you. Thank you Sasha! Her Bio is posted under the recipe card if you want to read her fascination baking (and life) journey.

Milk and Honey Sourdough Sandwich Bread

I’ve been making this delicious bread for several months now. I have ‘messed’ with it several times. Not on purpose. Life just happens sometimes and things(like rising times) have to adjust.

This wonderful recipe adjusts to the realities of life very well indeed. We are currently enjoying it for breakfast lunch and dinner. This is VERY reliable, flexible and forgiving recipe.

Milk and Honey Sourdough dough bread is a soft bread perfect for slathering on the mayo!

That holey crumb is problematic (for me at least-Dave doesn’t mind) when warm butter, mayo and other sauces slide through the open holes in the bread and drip all over. Milk and Honey sourdough bread is much better suited to a Meatloaf sandwich ,or warm toast and butter.

I should never photograph food hungry. I took a lunch break and made a Grilled Polish and Sauerkraut Sandwich to show you this bread in action. Marvelous filling sandwich on one slice of bread! This recipe makes a beautiful sandwich loaf.

You can make this recipe is loaf pans or boules as you see here. Whatever works best for you.

I have spent the last month or so trying to fail this Milk and Honey Sourdough recipe so I could give you tips and tricks on it. I have cut the recipe in half and doubled it and the bread was still great and rose well (But it Rose MUCH better when I used the high protein flours she recommends).

I played with the rising times, made it with both volume measurement and weight and even played with the baking instructions to make it perfect for my oven. Her instructions are rock solid. We always had a good loaf. But the BEST loaf is definitely achieved when the recipe is followed accurately.

Expect this loaf to take 24 hours or more. You may be able to fudge the rising times to 12 hours. It depends on your starter and flour choices. As well as the time of year.

Hot temps will easily over proof a loaf. Learn to watch your dough. Your experience is your best ally.

I ALWAYS make more than we need and freeze the extra loaves. This recipe freezes well at least two weeks. The loaves defrost beautifully and make great toast and sandwich bread.

I keep my homemade loaves in a loose plastic bag in my cold dutch oven on my counter. It works great as a bread box!

TIPS FOR THIS RECIPE:

TIP: Keep the recipe proportions correct! And follow all the processes in order every time. Yes you can fudge the rising times a bit but do this as a matter of experiment AFTER you learn the recipe as it is written.

There are good reasons Sasha makes her wonderful bread using this method. Trust this recipe!

How do you know that your wild yeast starter is ready to make bread?

Do the Float test! Drop a teaspoonful of starter into a cup of water and see if it floats. It should pop up to the top of the water in a nice solid mass with good spring and life.

For best results for ANY sourdough bread baking recipe keep feeding your starter until it is VERY active (it should bubble and talk to you a bit). If it floats up on top of the water you drop it into in a bouncy solid mass and stays there a while (several minutes) without dissolving you are ready to bake.

If it sort of barely lifts off the bottom and spreads out or is not all together at the surface… keep feeding it. Your starter is still too hungry to work well.

Sasha’s Sourdough Bread Pointers:

Mind the Flours you use: Sasha made me go find the flours she recommends to make this recipe for the post. WHAT an improvement to the rise. Thank you Sasha!

A high protein flour like Montana Wheat Flour. I prefer the Wheat Montana and Central Milling Flours. Organic and non GMO contribute greatly to good bread! The addition of enzyme boosters such as rye flour are very helpful to feed your starter as a little treat!

The crumb structure:

You actually have complete control over this aspect. By completely degassing the dough before shaping you can achieve a very even, and closed structured crumb perfect for slathering with mayo etc. On the flip side, you can create an open and lofty structure by handling your dough very gently when shaping and only degassing what’s absolutely necessary.

Don’t expect to obtain equal results with all purpose flour if a recipe calls for bread flour.It’s all about protein content. By paying attention to these aspects you can easily manipulate your loaves without changing your recipe.

This recipe also makes a beautiful pan loaf, which I fully de-gass (with a rolling pin) before shaping. Rise time will increase, but that always varies. Learning to judge your doughs in the fermentation process as well as final rise period comes with practice.

In short, bread can be a wonderful stand alone food but it needs to serve as a vehicle for whatever deliciousness we are placing upon it!

Over-Caramelization due to sugar content: how to work with this for perfect results…

This recipe is heavily enriched. We’re talking honey, milk, & butter. These three items all have sugars that will caramelize beautifully but have great potential to go past the point of appealing, and may very well burn.

I set the dutch oven on the door of the open (carefully, you don’t want to break the glass) and pull the loaf out to transfer it to the center rack to finish baking. After dropping one loaf, I changed my method from the top of the stove top to a very minimal distance to transfer. I’ve never had another disaster…

Leave the sheet pan below and let the loaf bake until you achieve the desired exterior color. If you find your loaf is browning too quickly, place a piece of tin foil over the loaf loosely. This will act as a shield and allow your loaf to finish baking without scorching.

It acts much as a pie crust shield does. Keep in mind that contact with the bottom of the dutch oven for longer than 30 minutes will increase bottom scorching risk.

SCORING TIP: slash your loaf assertively down the center and end to end. Optionally, slash the “leaf” pattern on either side of the center slash.

If you purchase items from our affiliate links we may receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thank you for supporting Homemade Food Junkie.

Milk & Honey Sourdough Sandwich Bread

NOTE: My oven is hot and does tend to darken the crust a bit no matter what I do to compensate for that. I made this latest loaf with all of Sasha’s instructions but it did darken more than hers does. But it is a soft crust and very delicious in sandwiches.

-By Sasha Hunter

Yield: 2 large loaves (reduce by 50% for 1)

Nutritional Information:

These daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Sourdough bread Calories change with your serving size. If you make a boule the center pieces should be cut in half for one serving. That makes a perfect sized sandwich. As you can see in the sandwich pictured above. One slice made a large sandwich.

74 Calories / Serving

Fat 5% 3 g

Carbs 3% 9 g

Protein 4% 2 g

Yield: 12 slices in each loaf

Milk & Honey Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Prep Time: 1 days22 hours46 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 days23 hours16 minutes

A reliable, flexible recipe for a lovely sourdough sandwich bread using the dutch oven, stretch and fold and long cold rise methods. This bread slices well, makes excellent toast, paninis and sandwiches.

Repeat the stretch and fold process four times 30 minutes apart. You are building the gluten in the dough in this stage. As you repeat the stretch and folds the dough will change from a gloppy mess to an elastic resilient dough.

RAISING THE LOAVES

Put the bowl into A plastic(grocery) bag and set in the refrigerator to finish cold fermentation for 24 hours. ***see notes at page bottom

NEXT DAY:

Remove Dough from the refrigerator and turn out onto a floured board.

Divide (by weight for even size) into two dough balls. Gently shape into two rounds, cover and let rest until dough comes to room temperature and is pliable. 30 to 60 minutes.

Shape and gently place into bannetons or pans (seam side up) to rise at room temperature until raised 20 to 30 percent.

Chill in refrigerator before baking two hours to cold proof in the plastic bag again. (this helps get a higher oven spring).

Baking Instructions:

Preheat oven with Dutch oven inside to 450˚F for at least 30 minutes.

Cut a piece of parchment paper large enough to accommodate your loaf. You'll use the paper as handles to lower your proofed loaf down into the very hot Dutch oven.

Take the risen dough out of the refrigerator .

Place the parchment round over the basket and carefully flip the whole thing over and un-mold the dough.

Using a pastry brush, dust the loaf to remove excess flour.

Score.

Spritz liberally with water (for a blistered, flour free crust) or omit the spritz for a rustic looking loaf

Carefully lower your loaf into the preheated Dutch oven and place the lid on and set into the oven.

Slide a sheet pan one rack below the Dutch oven to deflect excess heat from the bottom crust.

Bake covered for 30 minutes at 450˚F. *(MY oven is so hot I bake the bread completely covered for 40 minutes on convection heat at 450 degrees and it comes out as pictured. Adjust these directions to your own oven)

After 30 minutes, remove the Dutch oven from the oven. Carefully remove the par-baked loaf from the Dutch oven using the parchment paper as handles.

Slide loaf back into the oven directly on the center rack.

Spritz oven with water bottle.

Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until an internal temperature of 200˚F-205˚F is achieved.

Remove from oven to a cooling rack.

Let cool completely. To keep the soft crust store the loaf in a plastic bag at room temperature.

Let the Dutch oven heat back up for a few minutes and start the process over again for the second loaf. Enjoy!

Notes

***Note: Seasonal temperatures greatly affect the speed at which dough ferments. Keep a watchful eye on its progress. Make sure not to over proof. Your dough may need to be shaped sooner than 24 hours depending upon activity.

The nutritional information on this recipe is going to change according to the flour and other ingredients you choose to use. If made as directed the slices size will also somewhat affect serving size. We usually eat one half of a slice of these large loaves and cut it down the middle for a sandwich. That means we are getting twice the servings noted in this recipe.

I worked as a baker’s apprentice while going to school. Learned production baking and made everything from scratch donuts to wedding cakes. Worked as a cake decorator for a bit in local grocery stores.

My husband and I have a custom cabinetry and fine furniture business. I worked with him building our business for several years while producing numerous custom cakes for a range of clients (including one celebrity!…who I do not have permission to name, darn).

I have baked yeasted breads for years but I began my journey with sourdough in the summer of 2016. Bread was an area I was looking to “grow” in as well as improving what we were eating on a daily basis. The health benefits of sourdough were very intriguing to me, so I embarked on a hiatus from my cake business.

I made my first sourdough starter following the King Arthur Flour instructions on their website. I began to create my first loaves of sourdough and was overjoyed with my results. In the fall of 2016 I created another starter by using the peels of apples grown on our farm.

I created a yeast water with the apple peels and used that yeast water as the liquid component in my starter. This starter (I named him Apple Jack) has been very successful and is my preferred culture today. I use it in all of my sourdough creations, both sweet and savory.

I am no longer making custom cakes (except occasionally for friends/family). Currently I work in property management and baking sourdough bread on the side. I’m constantly developing new recipes, and keep a sourdough journal to log all of my bakes.

We are expecting our first child in June (just in time for our 10th wedding anniversary!) It delights me to know that I have the ability to provide my family with wholesome food and self sustaining skills. I hope to build an outdoor wood-fired oven in my next adventures (for pizza and breads) and maybe even start my own blog. I’m working toward my dream of authoring baking books one day.

Hi KC, Wow. You just made our Day with your lovely comment! I’m so delighted your finding recipes here at Homemade Food Junkie you enjoy. This Milk and Honey Sourdough Bread is One of my personal favorites. I’ll always be grateful to Sasha for sharing her recipe and expertise with us. Have a beautiful week KC!

Hi! Just wondering, could you change the milk for buttermilk? I’ve being thinking about making a sourdough bread flavored with banana, but it oxidizes quickly and the bread turns out a nasty green/blue color. So I though, maybe, having a more acid bread could do. Would the buttermilk work?

Hi Diana, I’m fairly certain the buttermilk would work. Here is a link to a recipe for sourdough banana bread. This may help you with your addition of banana into this recipe. Good luck! I’d love to know if you have success with it.

I just made this bread and it was wonderful! Exactly what I have been searching for to convince my kids to eat sourdough, 😉 I would like to try it in a loaf pan, but I am wondering what size you recommend? Thanks!

Hi Kesa, YAY! I’m so happy it worked well for you and the kids love it. So do all the kids around here. I keep losing loaves out the door when people come to visit.

I have never tried making this bread in loaf pans. If you want to try it, I would use three 9 x 4 greased pans (or line them with parchment). Do the shaping like you would a loaf pan bread and use the loaf pan instead of the banneton for the second rise. Otherwise follow the directions. For baking I think you can follow the directions for the boules. but you may have to reduce the times a bit. If you want no open crumb you can use a rolling pin and press out the air.
UPDATE: I made my Beginner Artisan Sourdough bread in loaf pans yesterday and it worked great. The 9 x 4 loaf pans fit well inside my 6.5 quart dutch oven.
I’d love to know your results. Good luck and thank you for the five star rating!